But you promised me
by Love-Me-Secretly
Summary: After Dean dies, How would Sam react? Sam- Centric, with a heavy dose of Dean. Written as a Companion for 'The Reaper is Waiting', but can be taken as a stand-alone.


Title: But you Promised me.

Summary: After the events in 'The Reaper is Waiting', how would Dean's little brother feel? Sam-Centric, with a heavy dose of Dean. Can be a standalone with minor confusion (although reading first one-shot or at least the summary of it is recommended)

Sam heard a series of beeps, getting faster and faster. Heart beating quickly, he ran towards where it came from, blood running cold when he heard the dreaded sound of one long beep which pierced his heart. He kept running, confused when he heard a second loud, high pitched wailing noise. Was someone else flat-lining too? He honestly didn't care, as cruel as it sounded.

He didn't care about anything but finding Dean's room, and waking up from this nightmare.

This had to be a nightmare, right? Dean would never leave him...

_"Deanie!" a soft, childish voice called, excited._

_"What do you want Sammy?" a second voice responded, the taller boy shoving a Playboy he'd stolen from their father under his pillow, a futile effort seeing as how Sammy had caught him with the magazine several times, but stubborn to have his kid brother keep every ounce of innocence and childishness he could before it was no longer possible._

_" I got an __**A**__ on my world history test!" he laughed happily. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, Sammy was a smart kid, but seeing as how this was their first day at new school and the teacher he had had a reputation for being a bitch when it came to tests, it was amazing._

_Dean grinned proudly. "That's my boy!" he teased, grabbing the younger boy and messing up his already disastrous hair, causing him to yelp and squeal in protest, hitting dean repeatedly with the rolled up test, causing the pre-teen to grin more, letting go and patting next to him. "Well? Let's see it, dork." he teased gently, causing Sammy to pout but hand over the test obediently._

Sam hiccuped. Dean was always... always there for him... always protected him, made him feel good about himself! He can't be... He kept running, not even daring to finish the thought, almost tripping over pretty young nurse when he tried to enter the room.

"Let me in!" He cried, shaking.

The nurse shook her head. 'I'm sorry sir, please calm down." She said, clearly nervous.

"Let me in!" he snapped, unusually rude due to panic. He needed in... His brother needed him.

_"Let me in!" Sam heard his older brother roar, hiccuping, tucking his face between his knees. His brother, only ten, was his source of protection and comfort. The reason he needed comfort now? He had called some kid a year older than him a 'stupid-head' because he had tried to say chocolate milk came from chocolate cows, just like 'Theresa's mom', Theresa being a young dark-skinned girl with whom Sam had become friends. _

_Theresa had started to cry, not understanding that the comment was a racist slur or even why it was bad he had called her mommy a 'cow'. Cows were nice and friendly, she knew. He grandfather owned a small farm, so she grew up loving the creatures as most young girls would kittens or puppies. She did, however, understand that the way he said it was mean and knew that, somehow, it was wrong and a terrible thing to say._

_Sam, also too innocent to understand why the comment was bad, but thinking maybe it was because 'cow' was a slang name for something mean in this new town they had set up in for a while, was rightly upset this bully had made his friend cry. He felt his own eyes prick with tears before he remembered what dean had told him._

_"If anyone gives you __**any**__ crap, Sammy, you give it right back to their sorry behind, okay? Don't let anyone talk to you like you're less than them...Or your girlfriend." Dean had added on teasingly. _

_Sam had never liked anyone talking to his friends that way, and had always stood up for the victims of playground bullies (even though he was often one himself), and, looking at the crying girl, her ebony hair covering her smooth milk chocolate face, swallowed, bravely standing his ground and stopping his tears in their tracks._

_What had followed was the following. Sam had retorted in the only way he knew how to defend himself: with facts, then, when the bully had tried to make __him__ feel like the idiot, calling him that fateful mother-of-all-insults in the world of a six year old..._

_Dean finally pushed his way past the nurse by turning on the puppy dog eyes and promising he'd be good until their daddy came for them, bundling his baby brother in his arms and having him tell him everything. Sam hesitated at the last part though, and Dean had to fight to coax out who had hit him. With embarrassment, the younger boy had admitted the bully had called upon his older sister, a middle schooler one year away from being a high-school freshman with an attitude that could wilt even the most chipper of people. Dean asked, confusedly, what the problem was._

_Sam explained he had thought the older girl would just yell at him, but was surprised when she hit him a few times, having terrible attitude and glad to have an excuse to use someone as a punching bag._

_Dean, shocked, hugged his brother tighter. "She hit you?"_

_"Y-yeah..."_

_"...I'll take care of it, kay?"_

_Sam nodded, cuddling into his brother's protective arms, asleep by the time their father signed him out of the hospital._

_A few years later, Dean admitted that was the only time in his life he'd ever hit a girl ( a sucker punch in the stomach, the older girl surprised a boy several years younger than herself could deliver such a powerful hit), but that she shouldn't have touched his Sammy._

He pushed past the nurse, wincing when he heard the other, second heart monitor wailing again. God, wouldn't someone shut it off? It was distracting.

He shook his brother's unmoving body, harder and harder until the nurses were prying him off again, falling to his knees when he heard the doctor give a time of death.

Dean, His older brother who always made him laugh, even at the worst of times...

_"I'm fine vampire bitch wanting a piece of my fine ass just got a taste of me. What can I say, the ladies love me~!"_

The brother who... who always protected him, whether from the monsters in his head or in the real world..

_"Shhhh Sammy. Shh... it was just a dream. Look at me. No, __**at **__ me. don't do your staring-off-into-space shit." he cooed softly, rocking him as he came down from the nightmare he'd been having for days on end. "Hey, nothing's gonna get you. Dean's here, mkay? My ass is too damn fine to get it kicked by some second-rate monster. We're Winchesters. Our name __is__ a gun, so what do we have to be afraid of?"_

Who **promised** he'd never leave him.

_He hiccuped. "D-D-Deanie. T-th-the d-dream i-isn't b-'bout me g-getting hurt." _

_Dean hummed. "What's got you so scared then?"_

_"I-In the dream, I'it's 'lways you.'_

_Dean looked startled, before smiling softly. "What, you think I'm not tough enough to take on whatever shitty monsters your screwy head can throw at me? I'm insulted!" he teased._

_He hiccuped and laughed. "I-its not that. But Deanie-"_

_"No buts. You're not old enough yet." Dean teased again, winking. _

_Sam wrinkled his nose. "Ew! Dean, that's..., Ew!"_

_"Shush and let me talk, midget. I'm never leaving your sorry ass, alright? You'd get your stupid self killed without me." he said, smirking lazily._

Sam punched at the tiled ground, ignoring the cries of the nurses as they tried to stop him. '_Maybe you're right Dean. Maybe I will get killed without you. Because I sure as hell don't know how to live anymore. I don't have Jess and I don't have you.'_

Just before a needle pricked the back of his neck and he fell face-forward into the perky bosom of a young pretty nurse who was holding him as he fell (_'Nice one! Second base without even buying her lunch! I taught you well!' _he could almost hear Dean say) it occurred to him that Dean had **promised** never to leave and Dean **never **broke his promises.

As his world swirled, however, he recalled a conversation he had had with his brother while they were packing for another town while still in their teens.

_"Hey Dean?" Sam asked thoughtfully as he carefully folded and put away his clothes into his luggage case._

_"Hm?" He grunted, trying to shove his suitcase shut._

_"Aren't you going to call that girl before you leave?"_

_"What girl?"_

_"The one you brought home and made me go to the movies because you said you two would be 'busy' " The twelve year old said. "That's been happening a lot since you got your license..."_

_"Chicks love my car." He said, shrugging with a smirk._

_"You mean Dad's car." He corrected with an amused tone._

_"Who says they need to know that, Smart ass?" he retorted aggravatedly._

_He only snorted. "Sorry. But anyways, aren't you going to call her?"_

_"Ah... No Sammy."_

_"What? Why not?"_

_"Because A.) We're leaving anyways, and B.) I feel like it."_

_"Dean, you promised."_

_"She'll get over it."_

_"Dean!"_

_"Sammy, You need to grow up a little. Some promises shouldn't be kept, some couldn't be kept, and some were __**only **__ made to give someone a smile or to get something."_

_"I...Dean..?"_

_"Sammy... Some promises were made to be broken."_

The wailing had stopped. It wasn't the monitor, it was him. He hadn't known he could make such an ugly sound. His eyes fluttered closed, but, when he opened them again briefly, he could have sworn Dean was there.

"D-D...'ean?" he slurred.

"I'm sorry Sammy..."

"But you pr...pr'mised me..."

"I'm sorry Sammy."

"Don...Don't go..." he begged.

He only smiled sadly, his body flickering as if licked at by invisible flames.

"Th_e_ _re__**a**_**p**er is w_a__**iti**_**n**g.." Dean's voice whispered after a moment, half an echo, and half a memory.

Ending A/N: The long paragraph areas in italics are, obviously, memories. The brief one-liners here and there in amongst the rest are thoughts or the like. At the end, the mashed up regular/bold/underline/italic mess was on purpose :)


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